It’s Thursday! Chris Krebs is gone after securing an effective election. So, it’s been another wild week. Here’s another week of tech talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. This week, Apple pays up again for batterygate, a new app translates meows into English, and Google wants to be in your wallet. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.
THE FRUIT COMPANY ENTERS $113 MILLION SETTLEMENT FOR BATTERYGATE
Yesterday, Apple agreed to a settlement with 34 states to the tune of $113 million for throttling performance on older iPhones that received iOS updates. The settlements comes as Apple agreed that it was purposefully making phones slower in a bid to preserve battery life as iPhones aged over time. Apple argued that the battery performance degraded and one way to preserve a user’s battery life was to slow the phone down. Well, the courts and lawyers disagreed, but Apple did come to terms with this payout. This settlement comes after a previous Batterygate settlement Apple made to the tune of $500 million. Personally, I hold off on upgrading iOS for as long as I can. I was forced into updating it for my Apple Watch and my phone has been acting wonky every since.
NEW APP TRANSLATES MEOWS, CATS YAWN AND TURN AWAY
Sometimes, I really think I’m working on things that are too complicated. Instead of trying to solve real problems, I should spend my time working on nonsensical stuff. Like what? Well, how about an app that translates a cat’s meow into English. Yup! A former Amazon Alexa engineer, a former Amazon Alexa engineer, is responsible for the app idea. According to Javier Sanchez, the group technical product manager at Akvelon, the software developer, the end goal is to make a smart collar that can be used to translate speech. Seems like a gimmick to me, but users on the website are pleased with the app, claiming that their cat now tells them, “I’m in love,” 90% of the time. The app uses advanced AI techniques to decipher cat meows. Cat experts say that cats don’t have a language like their human masters, but their masters don’t care.
EL GOOG GETS INTO FINANCIAL SERVICES WITH NEW PAY APP
This week, Google relaunched its Google Pay app in a bid to compete with Apple, Venmo, and other financial services technology companies. The app has moved beyond a simple tap-to-pay function and will now provide users with the ability to link bank accounts and credit cards with the app. Google is saying AI technology can provide advanced insights into spending habits and will replace the same functions users have at their banks. Google says their app will use your spending data to select the best accounts to use for making purchases. For instance, it may select a credit card for purchase if it provides the best cash back bonuses. Google is touting strict privacy rules for the app, but I’d imagine they are mining your spending data which will result in better ads.